Red Thread
Prologue Zela woke early that morning. The room was quiet, a rare occurrence when she shared it with her younger sisters. It was not yet dawn, the moonlight still faintly sliding along the floor, curtains rustling in the night breeze. Today, I am ten years old. ''It seemed unlikely, for her to have made it this far, and extremely final. ''One way or another, by the end of today, I will no longer be a princess. ''She should get up, do her workout, see if any of her older brothers wanted to spar. Eat breakfast, study, live her day as she had the day before. And the day before that. But no, she was not a dragonet today. ''I wonder if Raffia will kill me today. I wonder if Mother will get there first. '' And so she sat as the sky turned lighter, as the sun broke over the horizon like the yolk of an egg, spilling gold across the lands. Soft rustles in the hallway, the servants lighting the morning fires, sweeping the halls. There would be a party and noise and laughter, and she would tolerate it for as long as she could before slipping away to fly with Seedtail, laugh with Poppy and Flicker, hug them goodbye before- "Zela? What's going on? Is Raffia coming?" Abstract was sitting up in a mound of blankets, her eyes wide and fearful. All two years of her bundled up into a soft pile of fleece and pillows. Movement on the other side of the room meant Goldenrod was awake as well, and so was her sharp tongue. "Of course not, stupid! Do you hear Zela smashing anyone into the wall?" "I am ''not stupid!" "Are too!" "Is not!" Zela breathed in the morning air sharply, turned to face her sisters. "Stop. Please just stop. You can argue as much as you want tomorrow, but today...let me have quiet today." "Why?" pressed Abi, unaware of the concerned look Goldenrod was now shooting her older sister. Neither of them answered her question. Eventually, Golden broke the silence. "Abi, why don't you go get us some cookies from the kitchen? It is ''Zela's birthday, after all." All too eager to please, the littlest princess hurriedly extricated herself from the blankets and skipped towards the door, red scales glinting, muttering to herself about chocolate chips and oatmeal. "Well," laughed Zela, "That's one way to get rid of her. The dragonet practically ''lives on sugar." When she got no answer, she turned back towards the window, away from the sparkling scales her sister was named for. Watched the pale remaining sliver of the moon fade. "You're mad at me, aren't you." It wasn't a question. Silence, thick and heavy. And then Golden's voice, so soft Zela had to strain to hear it. Had to pretend not to hear the way it cracked. "You promised." Part One - Sparring Six months before... Chapter 1 Seedtail was late. It wasn't like him, and Zela tried to push down the swellings of doubt as she waited. Flicker was often caught up in work, yes. Even Poppy sometimes missed a meeting. But Seedtail? Never. Even if he was entangled in a job, he always ''sent warning. The evening sun played across her horns and made her deep-red scales glow, the long shadows behind her flecked with glitters of red. The bark of the old walnut tree was rough against her scales, the roots lumpy beneath where she sat. Zela was starting to wonder if she had somehow read the sundial in the gardens wrong when Poppy came flying up the hill, rough brown cloak trailing behind her. It was caught in her spines again, and Zela had to stifle her laugh. Behind her was Flicker, who never learned that if you were going to challenge Poppy to a race, you were going to lose. Grinning and not even slightly winded, Poppy dropped herself down onto the hilltop, wings rustling behind her as she folded them neatly and fixed her cloak. Looked around. Blinked. "Where's Seedtail?" "I don't know." Zela shrugged her shoulders as she spoke, looking of into the glare of the sunset. "He hasn't sent any warning at all." Poppy smiled in a reassuring sort of way, urging Zela to calm down. "You know, just because you're a princess doesn't mean you have to protect us ''all the time. Seedtail can take care of himself; you know he can. Don't worry about it." Zela nodded and let out a small breath. Poppy was right, of course. Poppy was always right. It was eerie, in a way, how she would be considered the least educated of them all and yet somehow knew the most. Claws scraped behind her, Flicker had finally arrived. Breathing heavily, she landed with a rough scrape on the roots of the old tree. Dried walnut leaves tumbled down around her as she leaned her body into the tree to rest, then coiled up with fluid grace in her usual spot between two large roots. The merchant's daughter held herself with the grace and poise of one trained from a young age to navigate the often deadly finery of court life. Despite the shadow of the Queen hanging over them, all the nobles and advisors of the Sky Kingdom seemed to act as though they were beholden to no one but themselves. Poisoned words and cutting glances exchanged over the finest of teas, Secret alliances formed and broken in the darkest hours of night. Flicker had seen it all, and lived to tell the tale. Only a year younger than Zela, the beautiful young dragoness had memorized almost every family tree and hidden tie of the ever-whirling court. She could list the darkest secrets of every high-powered dragon in the Queen's inner circle. "I have news. Where's Seedtail?" "Not here yet." Poppy answered for Zela. "What news?" "The plan," Flicker panted, still trying to catch her breath from her frantic race up the hill. "We need to change it. Now." "Why?" Zela demanded. "Did you know," Flicker rasped. "That your mother is preparing for war?" "What?" "This morning, she had a meeting with her closest advisors. I listened outside the door while distracting the guards. She- it's a full on assault." Flicker used her stunning beauty as both a weapon and a shield, allowing the nobles to believe her no more than a vain and shallow dragoness barely past dragonethood who cared little for secrets whispered within range of her keen ears. But Flicker's real weapon lay in her mind. Her near perfect memory and ability to instantly analyze the layout of a room never failed to amaze Zela, nor did her near-constant observing and calculating the odds of a situation. It was that ability that had led her to befriend Zela in the first place, all those years before. When no other dragon had picked up on what she was doing, Flicker had. And instead of reporting her to the Queen, Flicker had given the lost young princess the tools she needed to lure her older sister to her death. Zela knew she could never forget the look on Aydes's face as she plummeted to her death, nor would she ever want to. Not when the deaths that followed were... worse. But Flicker had taught her to observe and analyze, and Seedtail had taught her to kill dragons with blades and poisons and her own body. For them she would always be grateful, for the skills they gave her. And for Poppy, whose warmth was a constant, steadying presence even on the darkest of days. They'd met in this same spot almost every day for the past three years. Three years, while they'd trained and listened and plotted. Planned out the war of attrition Zela was to wage in order to take her snake of a mother off the throne, and deal with her older sisters as well. But now, as she sat in the last of the dying sunlight and listened to Flicker describe the attack her mother was planning, Zela realized that the young courtier was right. Their plan, so carefully set into motion all those years before, had to change. And they had only seven months left to change it. Seven months before the SkyWing army flew south to launch a surprise attack on the MudWings, their longtime allies. And it wasn't just a territory grab. This was a calculated assault went to wipe out as many dragons as possible. Perhaps even the whole Mud Kingdom would soon be under SkyWing rule. "Alright." Poppy said. "Alright, So. What do we do?" "I don't know." It was the only answer Zela could give her. "I do." Flicker said. "Either we find a way to stop this while we have the time, or... well, if we can't halt it before your tenth birthday, you're going to have to challenge your mother for the throne." Silence fell. "I can't." Zela said at last. "I can't." But if they couldn't stop this in time... she would have to. This was something they couldn't wait out, couldn't avoid by hiding her behind a veil of indifference. War was coming, and this time, they would have to face it head on. Chapter 2 Seedtail never did show up for the meeting, and Poppy remained on the hill to wait for him as Zela and Flicker returned to the palace. They could never be gone too long, never raise suspicion that they did anything but go for a late afternoon flight around the city. Just a spoiled princess and her equally spoiled noble friend. They'd thrown ideas around for more than an hour, and in the end they could only agree on one thing. The original plan was done. It had been useful, but they were in uncharted territory now. Zela had said as much during the meeting, earning a wicked grin from Poppy and a nervous glance from Flicker. Zela herself had laughed and chattered with the two of them, while the deadly truth lurked in the back of her mind. But she'd faked a carefree attitude well enough that even Flicker had fallen for her false bravado, and that was good enough for Zela. So long as her friends believed her calm and collected, maybe one day she'd start to believe it as well. Now, hours later, Zela sat on the balcony of the room she shared, having waited until her sisters drifted off to sleep. Alone in the moonlight-splintered darkness, she ran through fighting moves over and over in her head. Imaginary battles started and ended without a sound. She was good, she knew that. Better than she would ever let her sisters see. Seedtail had seen to that. But she'd seen her mother fight. Seen her good sisters die, one by one. Enough that the ones sleeping behind her were the only ones she would fight for if the time came. Enough that she would glady go to a fiery end for them. "Zela? Why are you still awake?" "Go back to sleep, Goldenrod. It won't be dawn for a while yet." Her little sister only crept closer. "You didn't answer my question." She murmured accusingly. Zela sighed, and grudgingly lifted a wing for the little golden dragon to slide under. "Are you scared of the dark?" Zela smiled at her sister then, a different smile than Goldenrod had ever seen. Soft and sad, but somehow stronger than she'd been before. "No Golden, I'm not scared of the dark." "But you're scared of something, aren't you?" "Yes." Yes, Zela was scared. Of what she would have to do and become in the near future, and what that new, uncertain future would do to her little sisters. But she said nothing else, and Golden didn't press the issue. Zela wondered if her little sister had ever wanted to be Queen. If she'd ever suspected that Zela had been preparing her for that very role. She was a good dragon. Sharp-tongued perhaps, but at least she spoke the truth and spoke it from her heart. She would have made a good Queen. And now... well, now Zela had six months in which to kill and lie and betray, and at the end of it all she would sit on a throne wet with fresh blood. She told herself that it didn't matter, that she would only have to hold on for six years before she could shove the burden of ruling a broken tribe onto Golden's innocent shoulders. And yet it was still too long. And yet she still wished she would never have to rule at all. Zela didn't want to know what type of dragon that made her. Chapter 3 "So, " Seedtail said. "Let's break this apart." It was a tactic they often used for tasks that seemed impossible. Chopped it up into parts they could manage, then completed them on a set schedule. Seedtail crouched on a root, tail coiled behind him. He'd offered no explanation for his disappearance yesterday other than vague apologies and mentions of business. None of them had pressed the issue, especially not Zela. That had been their arrangement from the start. He trained her and kept her secrets, and in return she never once asked questions. So far, it had worked well enough for both of them. "We have seven months to prevent your mother from starting a war. If we can't get it done in six, a challenge is our only option. None of us want that, so let's start now." "We can't kill her, one of your older sisters would no doubt take the throne and continue." Said Poppy. "And there's too many of them to kill, it would look suspicious." Added Flicker. "We could sabotage the war preparations?" Zela said. Seedtail frowned. "We could delay them, yes. But we wouldn't be able to stop them entirely." "It'd give us more time." Put in Poppy. "Alright then," Seedtail said. Leaning down, he scratched the word sabotage into the dirt with a stick. "What else?" Part Two - Battle Part Three - Aftermath Category:Fanfictions Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon) Category:Content (Skydream7) Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)